Saturday, August 28, 2010

4b because once the party got back to town and sold the scavenged bitz they wanted to sell I started my adventure.

The party went to see one of the consul members as the weird woman told them to. He was a little taken aback that they came to him when he was just going to seek them out but he told them his problem. Most the people of Big Springs work on Solar Tower 3 or work protecting it. Solar Tower 3 was made right before the Big Death to subsidize the power from the local dam North of Big City, what use to be called Ogallala. Last week one of the feed lines on Solar Tower 3 cracked, and about 6000 gallons of molten salt poured bout before they could get the system shut down. Lucky for the town, buried deep under the Tower complex is a holding tank that was about full when the Big Death hit. The latest spill has drained most of the remaining surplus of molten salt.

The guy named Billy Syth has said he knew where a old storage vat of Molten salt is and the town needs the party to go talk to him and bring back a load of molten salt for the tower. Tomorrow night is race night at the strip, Billy will be there. The party just needed to follow old Interstate 80 West about 40 minutes till they see the race.

going to a race the party decided that they'd be best to take both their battle car. Knowing the Jesus Billy Throttle would never allow his Lady to go without him they stole it with plans of returning it unharmed.

Coming up on the overpass for Rd 203 they could see that under the bridge the East bound lane was filled with burned out wreckage from the Big Death times. 203's overpass had junk piled high over the side of its concrete. Coming at the Bridge at about 65mph Rambler and Book, in front with Lady, noticed a raider with a machine gun right as he opened into them from the bridge above. Surprised, Book lost control of the car and went into a spin as he slid under the overpass. Regaining control (he rolled something like 6 successes!!) he stopped his spin with 4 startled raiders in his gun sight. Lady's machine gun took out 3 of them as Rambler leaned out the passenger side window and killed the last with his pistol. Then he noticed the Machine gun raider had ran across the bridge to open up on then again. With a single shot to the head the guy was down. As the party started to scavenge from the dead on I80 they heard a motorcycle start up and head south. Finding the machine gun and a grenade launcher on the over pass the party felt they had done pretty well and moved on.

Stay tuned for the next daring adventures in the wastes of Nevada!

Normally i'd not have given allot of exp for the adventure since they made out with pretty good loot with almost no injury's but since we don;t know how long it is till we move onto the new game we want to see how character advancement works. So I gave everyone 6points to do advancements with.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

OK, maybe that's too brief. I got into the hobby in 1979 when I bought Panzerblitz and a little bit later bought Divine Right. This led within a few months to buying the Dungeons & Dragons basic set (in the cool blue box). It only covered characters from 1st to 3rd level, but it had an adventure in it and was capably written (an uncommon trait in the early days). I "DM'd" the adventure with some neighbor friends and we were soon hooked. We all bought the AD&D books when the came out and were soon running campaigns and arguing about rules and grudge killing characters and "Monty Hauling" through ridiculous dungeons full of monsters and traps.Other board games and RPGs followed. I won't name them all. In fact, I won't name any of them. But I'm pretty sure I played or read most of what was available back then, except for some of those super-complex giant SPI games like Drag Nacht Osten.I stayed with the hobby in college with a great group of friends, and started getting into miniatures games, too. Inevitable, considering how miniatures driven games like D&D tend to be.After college, I played with several different gaming groups, including one at Comic Store West, back when it was at the North Mall (you guys want anything from Orange Julius?). A lot of D&D, but plenty of other games, too. Eventually I got married to Carolyn, we had Bryan, and I slowed down on gaming for a few years. When I got back into it, I played mostly miniatures games (Warhammer, Chipco, DH, and numerous historical rules sets). I wanted to get back into RPGs, but didn't have the time.Over a year ago, Brett invited Bryan and I to be in his D&D group. I'd never played 3.5, so I was happy to play. I've had fun ever since!Why do I still play after 30 years? The simple answer is: Because it's fun! Beyond that, I love RPGs because they promote cooperative game play and working with a team. To be good at pen and paper RPGs, you have to learn how to work and interact with people face to face. And miniature and boardgames are fun because they are competitive and allow you to see how people think, both strategically and tactically. Most of the people I've gamed with I consider friends and I really like hanging out and talking about other stuff beyond gaming. It's one way I stay connected to people outside of family, work, neighbors, and church. I will always find time to game because I've never considered it a waste of time.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Brett pointed me at this Friday at the store. I spent an hour drooling over the artwork and looking at the background. Check it out. and if one of you in the group doesn't get it in the next few weeks I am!

Eclipse Phase is a pen & paper roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic transhuman conspiracy and horror.

An "eclipse phase" is the period between when a cell is infected by a virus and when the virus appears within the cell and transforms it. During this period, the cell does not appear to be infected, but it is.

Players take part in a cross-faction secret network dubbed Firewall that is dedicated to counteracting "existential risks" — threats to the existence of transhumanity, whether they be biowar plagues, self-replicating nanoswarms,

Thursday, August 12, 2010

My first gaming experience was in Elementary school, probably 6th grade with the kids of some friends of my mothers. Ideas for dungeons were all I could think about for months afterwards. That Christmas my Aunt got me the D&D box sets. But didn't know anyone that was interested in playing.

In junior high I played Risk all the time until new neighbors moved in down the street. Then we played AD&D at the bus stop, on the bus, in home room before school, at lunch and in the evenings. Summertime was for bike riding, sword fighting with broom sticksand metal trash can lids and AD&D in a basement for hours and hours, days and days on end. High school brought more of the same and the spreading into MSPE(Mercenaries Spies and Private Eyes), Paranoia, Star Frontiers, Traveller, Gamma World and Star Trek RPG's (Mind you, most of these got a back seat to AD&D which was most of our gaming time). HS also brought Axis and Allies which we played. Oh and Dawn Patrol which I use to beg my friends to play since I was the only one in love with WWI stuff.

In the Marine Corps I started converting Battletech role play into my own idea of space opera. Once I found enough people that wanted to roleplay they asked me to run AD&D and the sci-fi ideas faded (Thanks Mike, Ben, Dan and Lulu). In my spare time I designed my own lands with sketches of landmarks and places of renown. Its also where I spent days drawing up the perfect maze that would fill up a whole session of gaming with them roaming around. What happened was they turned left 3 times and walked right through the maze without even knowing they were in one! It was the last maze I ever used in RPG's!!! Mikey ran a Call of Cthulhu that was so good that a knock on a desk made me jump back and fire my finger at a door. If I remember correctly it was a ghost and the bullet through the door did nothing to stop it.

In 1989+/-, living in Mechanicsburg PA I found the Comic Store West in York PA and soon after started playing AD&D and running WHFRP (Warhammer Fantasy role Play). This is when Dave B and I first started playing together, way back then. It was then that we we're invited to play in Brett's (Of CSW) Shadowrun game.

Moving to France killed my roleplaying but I played allot of table top game and board games. Confrontation, Primordial Soup, Guillotine, Grand Prix, Gang of Four and again a bunch of game that I can't remember right now.

Moving back to Harrisburg I started playing with a bunch of people I knew from years before. RMFRP (Rolemaster Fantasy Roleplay) we played more often then anything. We also played WHFRP, Spacemaster, Deadlands, CoC, ROTG (Run out the Guns), Traveller (from Mongoose Publishing), Judge Dread(MGP), Hammers Slammers (MGP), Connan(MGP), Serenity, Seventh Sea, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. In the boardgame/table top arena I played more WFB and 40k, BFG (Battlefleet Gothic),BBB(Blunderbuss's, Broadside and Boarding Parties), Settlers of Catan, SternenfahreR (Spacefare's of Catan). Flames of War, Chipco, Close Action, Victory at Sea Age of Dreadnoughts, Circus Maximus, Race Day, Tiki Mountain, Small World, Catan Card Game, Starship Catan, Hey thats My Fish. Wings of War, Cosmic Encounters (AH), ASL, and one of my favorates J.U.M.P. into the Unknown (Justified Use of Military Power). I'm sure I missed some but all this is while getting into 1/32 scale slot cars.

Sometime in 2010 my schedule opened to allow me to finally join Brett's D&D game though it wasn't long before he stopped running to run the promotional D&D game at the store. let to our own devices the group brought in 15 or so of our favorite games and voted on which ones we wanted to play.

The most recent games I've gotten or are soon to get are Atomic Highway, Colonial Gothic and Eclipse Phase. AH I'm running and playing now and its only a matter of time till we get to CG and EP!

I am in my mid-thirties and have been gaming since I was in the 6th grade. In Middle school, I began gaming with DnD 2nd Edition. I gamed with friends on weekends and after school. I also gamed with the Boy Scouts on many weekend trips. I remember going backpacking (where every pound counts!) and taking a Player's Handbook, dice, pencils, and character sheets with me. I was also fortunate enough to have a teacher, Mrs. Lloyd (the Latin teacher), who ran an after-school Role playing club. Mrs. Lloyd had EVERY DnD book ever published and she really mentored us as role players. During this time, I learned just how annoying some gamers can be (I met my first arch nemesis at this time who I absolutely hated).

It was around the 9th grade when I started spreading my wings as a gamer and played different gaming systems. I have fond memories of TMNT, Marvel D100, Star Wars, Battletech, Gurps, and others. I also found myself gaming with several stable ongoing gaming groups. I ran a Marvel game for several years that grew until it had about a dozen people playing. I also spent quite a bit of time in the DnD world of Ravenloft. I still have a strong affinity for that world today. Toward the end of high school I also started experimenting with other forms of gaming such as collectible card games. I had quite a Magic: The Gathering collection from early on that I sold in college. Argh!

When I went to Harrisburg Area Community College, my gaming friends all moved away to college or joined the military. I worked in my first comic book store at this time (Wolfhead Comics). I played Magic still and gamed occasionally but nothing steady.

After HACC, I worked at Comix Connection, the second comic book store to employee me. While working there, I rebuilt my Magic collection and fell into a weekly 5 or 6 player Magic game. We had quite the time, playing for hours on end. I even went to some Magic tourneys. DnD 3rd edition was released which sparked our Magic group to morph into a role playing group. We started a long standing campaign. When I moved to Millersville to attend college, I still gamed with this group, driving an hour one way to get to the game each week.

Alas, it wasn't to last. I flamed out on the group when group tensions were brought to a boil due to a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship between two gaming group members. I quickly fell into another group but it was odd because the group had been gaming together for 20 years and I was the "replacement" for a group member that had moved away. I found myself constantly unknowingly breaking previously-established group protocol. I quit this group when I moved to North Carolina.

In NC, it took me awhile to find a gaming group. During this "down time," I got hooked on strategy board games including Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride, and Colosseum. Eventually, through the internet, I found CharlotteRPG. At CRPG, I was exposed to a host of games that I had never played before, such as Shadowrun, World of Darkness: Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage, Seven Seas, Sengoku, Star Wars D20, and Macho Women With Guns. We pretty much played it all. I also met my second arch nemesis, Doris the Austrian Au Pair. We would routinely lock horns both in and out of the game. As a group, we would throw in some card games, video games, and board games for variety. The Vampire board game was cool, as was the collectible GI JOE card game and Cosmic Encounter. We also had an ongoing DnD campaign. Unfortunately, I moved back to PA and away from this gaming group.

Upon arrival back in PA, I randomly met an old gaming buddy in Walmart and we formed a new gaming group with some folks we used to game with back in high school. We had an ongoing Ptolus DnD campaign that took us from 1st to 12th level (a rare treat to truly develop a character). I was very sad when the GM just gave up the campaign and let us all hang. I left the group shortly thereafter.

And that is how I found myself available when Brett Stoner, owner of Comic Store West, asked me to join his gaming group on Wednesday nights. We started with DnD 3rd edition but didn't get very far when Brett had to leave the group. The group continued, however, and we have continued to play a variety of games including Aces and Eights, Atomic Highway, Traveler, and Warhammer Fantasy.

In the future, I look forward to playing a variety of new RPG games but I also look forward to getting into another long standing campaign where I can develop and advance a character through the levels.

Picked up the new creature source book - 'Irradiated Freaks' from the store before the game (but I won't need it tonight).

ok, not much action last session but I promised there would be more in this session. I spent the last two days of my vacation designing the prison and then I found a better prison floor plan on-line (http://www.mysterylist.com/hag.htm).

Our band of brothers first decided to check the cars in the lot for good batteries. They lucked out and found one with a decent charge which allowed them to use Rambler's deer spotting light. The group then decided to check for a generator
and found it in an exterior building, along with a good amount of gasoline (in an aux tank). They got the generator up and running and got the prison lit up. The group journeyed into the prison through the destroyed east wing which went
directly through the Warden's quarters. A few useful items were found in the warden's quarters expecially after Gorbo ripped the door off of the hidden safe.

Continuing to the warden's balcony our group spotted their first two zombies (yes kids you heard right zombies). Our group of Einsteins started shooting at them which caused more zombies to spawn because of the noise. The first zombies to appear
were ex-prison guards and prisoners (these were called Lurchers). Then the higher ranking guards (called Moaners) came finally followed by our first female prisoner (a screamer). Check back soon for full zombie specs. It took a while for the group
to realize everytime they used a gun (or chainsaw) the noise was attracting more and more zombies. There was 1 point where I was actually running out of minis to throw at the party.

The following characters got bitten: Hank and Rambler. Gorbo received a nasty claw scratch from the Screamer and I think all of the party received some damage from the screamer's scream. Only time will tell if Hank and Rambler turn into zombies because of the bite damage.

Anyway most of the party switch to quiet melee weapons and the zombies were destroyed.

Gorbo rolled two critical misses and once with the hammer (hitting the door frame instead of a zombie) and once with the chainsaw (getting the blade lodged in a zombie's spinal cord). Rambler
also ran out of bullets in his pistol and was forced to switch to his rife.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

I encourage Dave, Brian, Sam, and Young Brian to post a "gamer biography." Who are you as a gamer. What games have you played or do you enjoy playing? How long have you been gaming? What gaming groups have you been a part of?

Friday, August 6, 2010

Here's my Atomic Highway character, a remnant sentinel named Rambler, who drives a small Winnebago through the wastelands in a constant search to salvage parts, technology, and knowledge from the past for a better tomorrow. And for some fat cash.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

We started off with some quick character creation for Bryan and Dave since they missed the prior week. But then within about 30 minutes we were off.
So Gorbo, Roach and Eddie were off still trying to deliver the magazines/books from session 1 when they came across a broken down Winnebago owned by Rambler and
his friend Hank Hill. They managed to tow the Winnebago back to Little Town after killing a few Rat-Dogs (stats on Rat Dogs coming soon).

Once at Little Town we discovered that Rambler and Hank have been looking for this old detention center that was rumored to be in the area but had never been found. With the help from our
in-house history book Roach was able to figure out the aproximate location of the detention center.

Gorbo, Eddie and Rambler rode in the '58 Chevy and Hank took his motorcycle up The One (Rte 80) and finally found the overgrown rode. The vehicles were unable to continue through the overgrown rode so our heroes
made the last trek of the journey on foot.

Meanwhile Roach stayed behind in Little town to Tweak Lady (Eddie's car) and Rambler's Winnebago. Little did our heroes know Roach has a 'chem' problem (rules on chem coming soon) and probably should not have been left alone.

Our group of heroes found the lost prison, which because of tectonic shift was at the bottom of a steep cliff. The outer fence was wrecked it many area so after checking if it was electrified our heroes journeyed to the outer walls of the prison.

Experience for the session was given. All characters got 2pts. Gorbo was MVP so he received an additional point.